My drawing blog: Black Dogs After Midnight

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A weird thing happened after Husb and I visited some friends the other night.  As we drove home in the dark,  three large black dogs suddenly loomed on the road in front of the car. Husb managed to brake in time and the dogs disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. It was a shock! It’s rare to see a dog out on its own these days, let alone three. They were big and looked well cared for. We both immediately thought of the Hounds of the Baskervilles.

I don’t usually draw dogs or night time scenes so I’ve been playing with mark-making to try to convey the darkness and suddeness of the incident. I’ve used a solid graphite pencil, 8B, for most of it, with a touch of vermillion ink. The dogs’ eyes looked orangey in the street lights.

It was over suddenly, we have no idea what happened to them or why they were roaming at that late hour.

Hilarious Blogger about Wales and superheroes: Where is the Grand Keeper of the Text?

Tongue-in-cheek spoof about life and superheroes in Wales from the acerbic pen of Notsogreatdictator Smith.

Where is the Grand Keeper of the Text?.

It’s The Dogs…

28 the dogs

 

Here’s an English Bull Terrier I saw on the beach this morning. It was fabulous there; very sunny, the tide fully in and crowds of people enjoying the moment – all too rare in our climate. I don’t often get a chance to draw dogs and he was far more fidgety than my kittehs and more of a challenge. Still, speed drawing is good experience. I’ve used a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size F onto one page of my clothbound Laura Ashley A5 sketchbook. No pose was more than a few seconds. The sunshine didn’t last long; true to form, it’s pouring now.

 

ps I’ve been blogging now for just over 2 years and I’ve published just over 700 posts – that’s a lot of scribbling 🙂

Two years and 700 Posts

It’s been two years since I started blogging and I’ve done 700 posts! That’s a lot of scribbling. I started blogging when I was sitting with my old cat, Bobbit as she was dying. Here is the very first blog I published two years and 700 posts ago. Thank you for sticking with me and reading my bloggage over the months 🙂

 

My Journey with Bobbit.

Theatrical Scribbles, today’s drawing bloggage. …

Continue reading “Theatrical Scribbles, today’s drawing bloggage. …”

Back To Basics: Drawing a Tortoise!

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Enough of all this digital nonsense!  Back to basics with my lovely Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens and my cloth bound sketchbook.  Today I met a surprisingly fast moving tortoise called Jimmy in Cardiff.  Here he is,  indulging his cucumber habit.

Back To Basics

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Dolby And Proud

1374613631286Finally got to see the new Star Trek film this evening and it was brilliant. People like me are known as Dolbies, we stay to the bitter end, watching all the credits. I prefer the word Geeks  lol. I like to spot interesting sounding jobs and find out what they are. Today it was the Greens Supervisor, which is something to do with Green screen work.

I’m still playing with the new tablet. I don’t think it’ll replace ‘proper’ drawing for me, but I often have to do some design work to feed into my printmaking and that’s what I’ve been doing today, doing lots of sketches of hearts that will be used in a monotype I’ll be doing tomorrow.

The app is Magic Marker which is very basic and doesn’t seem to have a wide range of colours but it’s okay for drafting up some basic designs and it’s helping me to get used to using the tablet.

New Tool

Finally caught up with the 21st century and got a tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0. Oooh get Me! So now I’m trying to find my way round the drawing apps. This is my first attempt at a digital scribble. Long-suffering Husb manned up as usual. I love playing with new tools.

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Norman & Celtic

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Husb and I spent a lovely afternoon in Llandeilo, meeting up with a friend and going for a walk through the woods to the old Dynefwr Castle which dates from the 12th century, Norman times. The heatwave was going full blast and it was really hot by the time we reached the castle so I found a shady spot to sit and scribble. Here’s a bit of it, drawn into my A5 clothbound sketchbook that I’d prepared with ripped parcel paper, drawn with Faber Castell Pitt pens, sizes S, F and B in sepia. I used a bit of Indian ink wash on the shadows and a touch of white conte crayon in the highlights.

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We passed though an old overgrown graveyard next to a small chapel and I took a snap of this amazing gravestone, completely carved with Celtic knotwork designs.